RESEARCH NOTES
HOW TO ANALYSE YOUR RESEARCH DATA? ILLUSTRATIONS WITH HANDS-ON EXERCISES USING SPSS.
Table 3: Choice of statistical tests and the characteristics of variables
| Dependent variable | Independent variable |
Parametric test | Non-parametric test |
| Categorical: 2 or more groups | Categorical: 2 or more groups | - | Chi-square Fisher Exact test* |
| Categorical: 2 group | Categorical or continuous | - | Logistic regression |
| Continuous: 1 group | Categorical: 2 groups | t-test | Mann-Whitney U testWilcoxon rank sums test |
| Continuous: 1 group | Categorical: 3 or more groups | One-way ANOVA | Kruskal-Wallis test |
| Continuous: 1 group | Continuous: 1 group | Pearson’s correlation Simple linear regression | Spearman’s correlation |
| Continuous: 1 group | Continuous: many groups | Multiple regression | - |
| Analysis for paired data | |||
| Categorical: 2 groups | Categorical: 2 groups | - | McNemar test |
| Categorical: 1 groups | Categorical: 2 groups | Paired t-test | Mann-Whitney U test |
*For 2x2 table only
Numerical illiteracy
“Some feel that the numerical illiteracy of doctors is being exploited by drug companies and by authors of NSF and NICE guidelines as well as by editors of mainstream journals…”
Peter Trewby, commenting on “Foundation of Evidence-based Medicine” (by Mios Jenicek). [PDF]
http://www.jrsm.org/cgi/reprint/96/10/515.pdf
Improving Medical Statistics and the Interpretation of Medical Studies
This website gives “examples of the misuse of statistics and inappropriate conclusions in the medical literature”.
Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics
This website has an online statistics textbook, simulations and case studies.
Web Pages that Perform Statistical Calculations!
In this website, there are more than 600 links to online statistics books, tutorials, downloadable software, and related resources.
STATS - STeve's Attempt to Teach Statistics
Steve Simon’s list of references and his simple way of explaining difficult statistical concepts.